


The Village of Luck

by All_My_Characters_Are_Dead



Series: Countdown Week Prompts [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, kind of Japanese myth AU?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/All_My_Characters_Are_Dead/pseuds/All_My_Characters_Are_Dead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Countdown Week day 4: mythology!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Village of Luck

In a small village in an island kingdom, there was a very unlucky girl. Her name was Fuun, and misfortune seemed to follow her wherever she went. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father's crops failed year after year, until he was the poorest man in the village. Every time Fuun tried to make friends with the other children of her village, one of them would get hurt or fall ill the next day. When Fuun was ten, the village leader's wife died giving birth to a child as Fuun walked past their home. Enraged, the leader chased her out of the village. Terrified, Fuun fled into the nearby forest. She ran, blinded by fear and grief. She had been chased from her home, from everything she knew.

After what seemed like forever, Fuun finally stopped running and leaned against a tree. She lifted a hand to the amulet she wore around her neck, a luck charm that wasn't even worth selling for food. It was all she had left of her mother, though, so she had kept it instead of throwing it away. A dark butterfly fluttered around her head, then dove toward the amulet. As the insect made contact, Fuun heard a voice in her head.

'You have been cast out of your village. You must make them pay for that,' the voice told her. Fuun trembled.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

'I am Hawkmoth. And I will grant you the power to have your revenge. There is just one thing you must do for me in return.'

"Don't listen to him!" another voice shouted. Fuun jumped and stared around. She had assumed the voice in her head was a god or other spirit, but this voice was human. "You don't need revenge. You need a home." Fuun finally spotted the person who was urging her to ignore the voice in her head. It was a young man, wearing a crimson robe with black embroidery. "I can give you a home, but you must reject the butterfly." The man's face was hidden by a black mask with red spots, but there was something in his voice that Fuun liked. He certainly sounded nicer than the voice in her head. "Hawkmoth will give you only destruction. I will give you a new life." Fuun didn't want to go back to her old village, even to destroy it; she had done enough harm, and now that they had cast her out, she never wanted to go back.

'Don't listen to him! Take the power I offer you!' Hawkmoth urged in her head. The man in the mask held his hand out to her. Fuun hesitated, staring at the offered hand.

"How do I get rid of the butterfly?" she asked.

"You just did," the man replied. It was true; as soon as Fuun had decided not to take Hawkmoth's offer of power, the butterfly emerged from the amulet and fluttered away. Before it could get too far, however, the man in the mask leaped impossibly high, his robe flaring like insect wings. When he landed, he held the dark butterfly in his hands and whispered something to it. A moment later, he opened his hands, and a pure white butterfly flew away. "There. The evil has been cleansed."

"Who are you?" Fuun whispered, astonished by the man's leap. He chuckled quietly.

"I am the Tentōchū," he told her. "At least, that's what people call me when I wear this mask. But underneath it..." There was a flash of red light, and Fuun shielded her eyes. When she looked back, she realized that the young man was much younger than she thought, and maybe shorter, too. Standing before her in a normal brown robe, he looked no more than fourteen. He had a small black earring in each ear. "What's your name?"

"My village calls me Fuun," she answered hesitantly. The man - no, boy - smiled at her.

"It's nice to meet you, Fuun. My name is Ganbarou," he told her. "Follow me, and I'll show you my village. You can have a home there, if you want." Fuun shook her head.

"I'm bad luck," she whispered. "I shouldn't..."

"Bad luck? That's okay. No one will get hurt," he assured her. "My powers as the Tentōchū gives me and anyone around me so much good luck that your bad luck won't change anything." Fuun's eyes widened.

"Are you a priest?" she asked.

"Kind of. My family cares for the shrine of the luck goddess, Tikki," he said, reaching into a pocket of his robe and pulling out a tiny red and black creature. "Tikki, meet Fuun." Fuun gaped at the little creature. This was a goddess? Fuun bowed quickly, and almost fell over in her haste.

"Relax, Fuun," the little creature said gently. "And if you choose to take the position Ganbarou thinks you are suited for, you won't need to bow to me." Fuun looked up, staying bent at the waist.

"Position?" she echoed.

"I can only do so much by myself," Ganbarou explained. "The Tentōchū is destined to have a companion, a fierce warrior who will fight alongside him against the demons Hawkmoth sends to torment the people of this region. I sensed it when I saw you reject the demon; you have the potential to become the Kuroneko." Fuun's eyes widened.

"Me? A brave warrior? But I'm just a girl, and an unlucky one at that," she protested. Ganbarou smiled softly.

"Come meet my counterpart, Plagg," Tikki suggested. "He's the god of bad luck, just as I am the goddess of good luck. If he agrees with Ganbarou's assessment of your potential, then you will receive his blessing and become the Kuroneko."

"Please, at least meet Plagg," Ganbarou begged. "I need a Kuroneko to help me. The demons are getting stronger, and I won't be able to defeat them on my own for much longer."

"All right," Fuun agreed. "I'll meet Plagg. But if anything bad happens, I'm leaving the village. I don't want to be thrown out again..." she added under her breath. Ganbarou and Tikki exchanged worried glances.

"No one will throw you out, Fuun. Plagg's shrine is on the edge of the village. It's about a half hour's walk from here," Ganbarou added, holding out his hand. Fuun took the offered hand gingerly, afraid her bad luck would transfer to him. But he simply squeezed her hand reassuringly, then led her through the woods.

**Author's Note:**

> Tentōchū is what Google Translate says is Japanese for ladybug, so I went with that. Also, I used Kuroneko for Chat Noir since it means black cat.


End file.
